Arsenal were heavily linked with Jean-Michael Seri over the summer before he signed for Fulham - and the 27-year-old came face to face with the Gunners on Sunday.

Prior to the game, it seemed to look like one that Seri could thrive in.

So far for Fulham this season, he's had the most passes and touches, while heavily contributing to the tackle and interception stats at Craven Cottage as he's enjoyed a decent start to life in west London.

Against Arsenal, a team who like to play football like Slavisa Jokanovic's side, it looked like Seri would be given the space to get onto the ball and get Fulham ticking, exploiting Andre Schurrle and Luciano Vietto's runs in behind the Arsenal back four.

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However, Granit Xhaka and Lucas Torreira were well marshaled and did a decent job on nullifying Seri's impact, although the midfielder did manage to see lots of the ball throughout the game.

We kept an eye on Seri to see how he did against a side like Arsenal.

0-15 minutes

A quiet start for Seri, but he looked to come collect the ball deep in midfield in the opening stages before opening his body to play simple passes to his wing backs.

Played the more advanced of Fulham's two central midfielders, with Andre-Frank Anguissa tasked with breaking up Arsenal's attack, giving Seri license to press high and force errors.

(Image: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

Showed a few neat touches in tight areas to move the ball into the forward third but a missed interception on the 13th minute lead to a dangerous Arsenal attack that was snuffed out by Denis Odoi.

15-30 minutes

Almost delivered a defence-slicing first time pass in the 18th minute after a botched Arsenal clearance, but the ball was just overhit.

What it did show, however, was the vision and awareness that Arsenal were pushing men up, leaving both Aleksandar Mitrovic and Andre Schurrle open in space.

(Image: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

Had an effort on goal after picking up the ball in space that smashed into Mitrovic on the way through to goal.

Seemed to know exactly when to go forward and when to cover Anguissa, which was crucial to how Fulham had started the game.

30-45 minutes

Started the second third of the game with some more good awareness on the edge of the box, taking a touch and playing it to Mitrovic before offering himself for the ball again, eventually leading to an Anguissa strike.

He did, however, lose the ball in a dangerous area seconds later that led to another Arsenal attack - this time Marcus Bettinelli coming to the rescue for the Ivory Coast man.

Fulham's heads had dropped by this stage in the game, with Seri's influence on proceedings also waning having picked up that yellow card a few minutes prior.

Arsenal started to get a hold of the game here, meaning Seri saw less of the football and was drawn into a more defensive role as the Gunners started to run a bit riot.

The verdict?

Seri was, perhaps, one of the better players on the pitch for Fulham and looked to make things happen, but his performance won't have made Arsenal fans feel like they had missed out on him in the summer.

(Image: Christopher Lee/Getty Images)

That said, he looks a different player without Tom Cairney beside him.

With the skipper injured, Seri is the man to get Fulham ticking along and to win the ball in a box-to-box midfield role, and I think he needs someone like Cairney next to him to bring out the best in him.

His early season performances seem to support that, so despite a 6/10 performance from Seri on Sunday, I'm looking forward to seeing both him and Cairney back together in that midfield.